NCERT / CBSE NOTES | Class 8th (VIII) : Chapter Summary

Ruling the Countryside

Revenue Systems

On 12 August, 1765, the East India Company was granted the
Diwani of Bengal and was now the chief financial administrator of Bengal. The
company now had rights to collect revenues in Bengal.

Robert Clive, the governor of Bengal appointed native agencies who helped him
collect the revenues on behalf of the Company. However, this system failed when
Clive left India in 1767.

They hence forced the peasants to pay heavy dues as land taxes and forced artisans
to sell their goods at very cheap rates. This drove the peasants and artisans
away from their villages, which consequently led to a decline in the production
of artisanal goods and agricultural crops. The economy of Bengal collapsed.

Bengal was struck by a terrible famine in 1770, which killed ten million
people. The company therefore introduced many land revenue systems. In 1793,
the Permanent Settlement system was introduced by Lord Cornwallis, the
Governor-General of India.

Under this system, zamindars were given the responsibility of collecting rent
from the peasants and in return paying revenue to the Company. This revenue
would remain fixed throughout. However, the system failed.

Another system introduced by Captain Alexander Read was called the ryotwari.
The system was further developed by Thomas Munro, the Governor of Madras and
came to be known as the Munro system. In 1822, another revenue system
called the ‘mahalwari’ system devised by Holt Mackenzie came into effect in the
north western province of the Bengal Presidency. However, all the land
revenue systems introduced by the company failed miserably.

Crops for Europe

The East India Company introduced many land revenue systems
and forced cultivators to grow opium, tea, sugarcane, jute, rice, cotton, wheat
and indigo for export to Europe.

Indigo cultivation was the most popular due to its high demand in the European
markets during the British Rule. As it was priced high, only small amounts
reached these countries, and so the Europeans had to use the dye from a plant
called woad.

However, between 1783 and 1789 the indigo supply from America and West Indies
almost came to an end, and the indigo production in the world fell by half.

To meet the excessive demand for indigo in Europe, the Company encouraged
indigo farming in Bengal. Indigo from Bengal became famous the world over and
the share of Indian indigo in the total indigo import of Britain increased from
30% in 1778 to 95% in 1810.

Expansion in the indigo cultivation prompted many Company officials to start
indigo business in India.

Systems of Indigo Cultivation

Towards the end of the 18th century, the
East India Company was trying to expand its Indigo cultivation in India to
support the growing textile industry in England.

There were two systems of indigo cultivation namely nij and ryoti being
practiced. Nij constituted less than 25% of the total land under indigo
cultivation and ryoti constituted 75%.

Under nij cultivation system, indigo was grown on lands directly under the
control of the planters who either rented or purchased it from zamindars and
then hired labourers to work on it.

The planters were finding it difficult to expand indigo plantations under this
system as the indigo cultivation needed fertile lands, most of which were
already densely populated. It also required a large compact area and only small
scattered plots of land were available.

The time for indigo cultivation coincided with that of rice cultivation causing
another hindrance.

In the ryoti system, cultivators or ryots were forced to sign an agreement
called satta and were given loans at low interest rates to grow indigo.

Though initially the low interest rates looked attractive, the ryots weren’t
getting a good price for their indigo and so were unable to repay the loan.
After an indigo harvest, the ryots were unable to grow rice on these fields
which was very unprofitable for the ryots.

The indigo cultivators were exploited by the planters, which eventually led to
a revolt in 1859.

The Blue Rebellion

In Bengal in March 1859, with thousands of ryots started a
rebellion against indigo cultivation known as the blue rebellion or the indigo
revolt. The ryots armed with spears, bows and arrows and swords attacked the
indigo factories and planters.

The blue rebellion began just two years after the great revolt of 1857 and it
worried the British.

The rebellion prompted the government to bring in the military to safeguard the
planters and to set up the indigo commission to investigate further into the
situation.

After the blue rebellion, indigo production in Bengal collapsed, and the indigo
planters shifted base to Bihar.

In 1917, Gandhiji visited Champaran in Bihar and moved by the plight of the
ryots, initiated a movement against the indigo planters, known as the Champaran
movement.

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